Blame Rep. Kelly

October 24, 2013Letters to the Editor

Regarding Congressman Mike Kelly’s press statement blaming the Democratic Party for the government shutdown:

The issue the Congress had to address initially was funding the government. A contentious matter, but one that could have been negotiated between the two parties. The whole matter went awry when the Republicans contended that they would vote to fund the government only when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was defunded.

The House of Representatives already had taken more than 40 votes on repealing a law that had already been passed. Plus the act was fully funded and declared constitutional by the Supreme Court. Finally, months earlier, President Obama had said he would not negotiate that issue.

If Kelly thinks Democrats were responsible for the government shutdown, he should look at the results of the vote of the Congress to reopen the government. In that vote, every Democrat voted “aye” and almost two-thirds of the Republicans in the Congress voted “nay.”

In looking at our country’s political state and the low poll numbers of the Republican Party, it might do our representative well to ponder the wise words of the great comic strip character Pogo, who observed, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”